


“Tyché Norick, Ninth Handmaiden in the First Class for Padmé Amidala”

by Polgarawolf



Series: Star Wars: You Became to Me [31]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M, Handmaidens, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Prisoner of War, Sacrificial ethics, War, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polgarawolf/pseuds/Polgarawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is fifteen random but chronological moments from the life of Tyché Norick, who is, quite literally, the ninth handmaiden in the first training class of potential handmaidens chosen from among a large pool of applicants for the job for the newly elected Nabooian Queen Padmé Amidala. There is an actual story here – one small thread among the vast woven tapestry of life that is the living history of the galaxy, stretched out and twisted, knotted into the whole, curled down among the roots of time, connecting various moments together – but one must read between the lines to capture it. It is not precisely the truth, for the subtle story of these moments is sketched out here in words, and, in the sin of writing down a life, it inevitably changes the shape of things. But it is nevertheless a form of truth. (From a certain point of view . . . )</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Tyché Norick, Ninth Handmaiden in the First Class for Padmé Amidala”

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This story functions as a sort of compressed codex for Tyché Norick’s life, as she is going to be written (or at least referred to) in my not even nearly complete AU **Star Wars** series **_You Became to Me_**. If anything doesn’t make sense, please feel free to ask!
> 
>  **Author’s Notes: 1.)** Again, this is compatible with my SW AU series **_You Became to Me_** , including my _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ trio, if you squint at a couple of things sideways and view a few others solely through the lens of Tyché Norick’s eyes. **2.)** Although this is technically modeled on a prompt set that I adapted myself from the notion of prompt sets I’ve seen on the LJ, it’s not really meant to function as a response to a challenge for a set. I just used the specific prompts I came up with to give me a reason to string together a backstory of sorts for Tyché. **3.)** Readers might want to consider the fact that Tyché, like a lot of native Nabooians, is fairly strong in the Force, but that, unlike most Nabooians, she’s received more than a little training in controlling that sensitivity to the Force, having grown up as a ward/acolyte of the Lady’s Temple in Theed. Please note that her dreams are not so much dreams as they are Force-visions, of sorts, many of them of the Sith (with imagery borrowed/modified from events/places/beings portrayed in James Luceno’s EU novel _Darth Plagueis_ ). **4.)** Readers interested in knowing who the physical models are for original characters like Tyché should please consult the latest versions of my posted lists of cast original and EU characters and for handmaid(en)s and other important Nabooian characters, which are available on my LJ! For clarity’s sake, Tyché Norick’s mother, Glynisa Norick should be pictured as Glynis Davies, and the Temple Healer who adopts her, Rashmia Rystagi, should be pictured as Rashmi Rustagi. Please note that characters who may be alluded to but not referenced by name (certain family members of original characters, for example) are considered too minor to be cast at this time, and readers should feel free to imagine them howsoever they wish! **5.)** Handmaidens often tend to pair off, as is the case here, with Tyché Norick and Acharé Alstone, a fellow handmaiden from the same training class (hence, the relationship label for original female characters and the underage warning). **6.)** Speaking of pairings, I've labeled this to indicate Padmé Amidala's love for Obi-Wan, because, even though it may not be specifically mentioned in this character study piece, handmaid(en)s know so much about their sworn Lady that readers can be certain that Tyché, like all of Amidala's other handmaid(en)s who knew him (or knew of him), would have surely known about their Lady's love and high regard for Obi-Wan, just as they would have known about how much Amidala and Sabé love one another! **7.)** Readers should please keep in mind that words that appear Gaelic in nature or else modelled on Gaelic terms are meant as place-holders for non-Basic words (in this case, Nabooian). If anything doesn't make sense in context, please just ask, and I'll send an English approximation for the word/term!
> 
>  **Story Notes:** **1.)** Since this is part of a larger on-going AU series that in some respects fairly closely mirrors or follows events of canon (up to a certain point, anyway), readers should please keep in mind that certain characters and events from the prequel movies/novelizations of the films and even events/places/people referenced in the EU or Expanded Universe may be mentioned or alluded to in this story. If anyone has any questions about whether someone or something is AU, canon, or EU canon, please feel free to ask! **2.)** Readers should probably be aware that I am roughly estimating (guestimating might be a better word) the original publication date for most of the character study pieces in the **_You Became to Me_** series (and indeed most of my stories, especially the ones written over a long period of time), based on when I roughed out notes for them in the story notebooks I carry everywhere with me and when I can recall having worked on certain groups of characters. The year is going to be accurate, but the month might be off and the day will almost certainly be randomly chosen, since the online account I had originally posted many of these stories to no longer exists. I tend to go back and edit things that are in series whenever I get the time or a new idea causes me to have to make room for something else plot-wise, and odds are good that a story could have been edited for typos as recently as the day of its posting here, but the original version will likely be much older and fairly close to the publication date that I attach to it, if anyone's curious!

**“Tyché Norick, Ninth Handmaiden in the First Class for Padmé Amidala”**

**01.) Ward:** One dark and stormy day at the end of Relona, during the interim reign of Ars Veruna (following the tragic death of his wife, Queen Kailennia, in an accidental fall down a very long stone staircase) a woman, heavily pregnant (seemingly only weeks from term), badly battered, and running a fever so high that she could coherently answer only one of the many questions posed to her (her name, which she fervidly insisted was Glynisa Norick, though no records could ever be found, afterwards, to substantiate that claim), collapsed on the doorstep of the main Temple of Asherah, in Theed, screaming in pain, and, though the Temple Healers did everything in their power, nothing could be done for poor woman, though they did manage (just barely) to save the life of her child, who was named Tyché Norick and, eventually, when no surviving relatives came forward to claim her, adopted by a Temple Healer, Rashmia Rystagi and raised as a ward of the Temple, since Rashmia herself was sworn to lifelong service in the Lady’s Temple and so made her home there, among the other sworn _searbhânuasal_ of the Temple.

 **02.) Life:** Tyché never knows any other life than that of the Lady’s Temple, but then, it’s not as if it were a bad life or anything – wards and acolytes of the Temple spend most of their early years gaining an extremely wide-ranging education of a caliber unmatched by any but the very best of schools, and receiving a thorough grounding in the ways of the _criosanna teinedíait_ , the living mantle of power of the Great Lady known as Asherah to most Nabooians (and Nisaba to the people of Uriash and the students of Uriashian war-crafts), that boundless and infinite sea of light and love and life that the Jedi name the Force, and the Lady’s Temples and the sworn _searbhânuasal_ of the Temples tend to be so highly revered within Nabooian culture that the Temples hardly ever want for anything (even in times of trouble and privation), meaning that those who are raised within them are all extremely well taken care of, too. Plus, wards of the Temple tend to be raised communally, by all of the _searbhânuasal_ , so that younglings growing within a Temple’s walls never wants for a sense of family or of belonging – and, since she is both extremely bright and possesses an even higher than normal sensitivity to the currents of the _criosanna teinedíait_ (so high that, or so she is told, had she been born on almost any other world than Naboo, she would have almost certainly been snatched up at birth and spirited away to the Jedi Temple at Coruscant for training), she spends much of her childhood surrounded by beings who love and praise her and spend so much time teaching her the most wonderfully engaging and challenging things that she never really has any time (or desire) to miss or mourn the life she might have had, had her biological mother lived.

 **03.) Wonder:** She does wonder, sometimes, a little, about her biological mother’s family – about whether or not someone somewhere might still be missing Glynisa Norick and desperately hoping that, one day, she might still come home . . . or that word might at least finally come, some day, to tell of what happened to her – but the Temple expended quite a bit of time and effort trying to verify the existence of anyone by the name of Glynisa Norick (either among the citizens of or visitors to Naboo) and attempting to backtrack her mother so that any surviving family or friends might be found and came up entirely dry, so she doesn’t really spend a whole lot of time thinking about it (especially not since she’s usually so busy with other things and, after all, no one has ever come forward asking about Glynisa Norick or anyone even close to matching her description).

 **04.) Long:** She has dark eyes, darker hair, pale skin, and is slight of build, and is told that she resembles her biological mother in these regards, though her face is not quite so thin or long (or at least it isn’t yet, anyway, though it is still shaped basically like an oval, so it’s entirely possible at she might more closely resemble her mother when she has grown more fully into her adult self) and her hair is even darker than her mother’s was and she is prone, ever so slightly, to freckling across the nose and cheekbones, when she spends too long out in the sun without proper protection (something that, as a very young child, irks her to no end and makes her long for skin as lovely and caramel-rich and even-toned as her adoptive mother’s).

 **05) Exercise:** The Naboo are a peaceful people by principle and belief, but the galaxy is often a wild and dangerous place (full of beings who are not always nearly so peaceful), and the Lady helps those who help themselves, and so, in addition to her more regular schooling, once she is old enough to have lost at least most of her childish clumsiness, she is also started on a regiment of exercise that includes the basics of hand-to-hand combat, defense, and training meant to help tone and condition her body and give her an edge of speed, flexibility, strength, and endurance if she should ever find herself in a position where she might need to be able to fight or flee in order to save herself from harm . . . just in case.

 **06.) Sense:** She has dreams sometimes about things that make no sense – a massive explosion suddenly tearing through a cavern, and an old Bith, caught under a fall of stone, crushed to death; an obviously wounded Munn, standing on the bridge of a small freighter, turning to give orders to a droid; another, much younger Bith, hanging suspended in a bacta tank, numerous wireless sensors affixed to his narrow chest, neck, and fissured, hairless cranium; a sleek starship bearing the familiar sinuous crest of a Nabooian royal family (House Palpatine, if she knows anything at all about Nabooian heraldic crests), badly battered and filled with the wreckage and bloody offal of destroyed droids and not just murdered but utterly annihilated humans, floating dead in space; a perfect circle, twenty meters in diameter, cut from a single slab of stone and constructed so that one end only touches the floor while the other is held steady at a constant ten degree cant up off of it by concealed antigrav generators, shining wetly and dripping runnels of blood; a world of fire and ash, where the ruined remains of a man are taken up by a mysterious humanoid figure in a deeply cowled black robe and thrust violently into a terrible, terrifying black suit and made into a monster; a world that, from space, looks much like Naboo (if perhaps ever so slightly less blue and a little bit more green), suddenly exploding into a hundred thousand million flying fragments of death and destruction – nightmares that see her wake screaming out of horror or weeping from loss and grief, and, though she knows, logically, from the ripples in the _criosanna teinedíait_ surrounding her, each time she wakes, that the dreams are visions being sent to her for a reason, she cannot help but wish that the awful visions would stop . . . or that they would at least make enough sense for her to draw some kind of meaning (or even a coherent warning) out of them!

 **07.) Bolt:** The first time she hears the name of Padmé Naberrie – then just a young girl in the running for Princess of Theed – it is as though she has literally been hit with a bolt from out of the blue: before the name can even fully consciously register, the _criosanna teinedíait_ suddenly swells and explodes with energy, fire and knowledge crackled into and along her suddenly galvanized brain, her entire body seizing violently in place (hands convulsing so strongly that she shatters the datapad she had been about to hand to one of her many trainers), eyes rolling back in her head at the vividness and immediacy of the vision abruptly swamping her brain, the words, “Padmé Naberrie will be Queen of Naboo – Padmé Naberrie _must_ be Queen of Naboo – or the cloak of darkness will fall and never again be lifted and this entire world will die to fuel a monster’s darkest desires,” tumbling from her lips with all the finality and brutally inescapable speed of a sudden fall of rocks, in the process crushing more than a few hopes (dreams) and yet also clearing a path that might, otherwise, never have been made known to her in time to take it.

 **08.) Burden:** The _dævítru eisharti searbhânuasal_ herself comes to see Tyché after her sudden and unexpected prophetic turn – face set in lines of grave solemnity, gaze warm and concerned, and voice quietly solemn, the revered head priestess of the Lady tells her, quite bluntly, “It is a hard path, to be called for, to protect others. There are often many sacrifices required, for one who is a protector, including needs and desires that tend to put the self ahead of the one or ones meant to be protected, and it is frequently also a life of shadows, of keeping out of the sight of others and drawing so little attention as to barely even be noticed to exist, by most, meaning that it is not a life of acclaim or fame. I will not lie to you about this, Tyché, for it is far too important a thing even for mild prevarication: it will be difficult, and there will very likely be times when you will be sorely tempted to despair, to wonder why the Lady has placed such an awful burden on you and even to rail against Her for placing so much trust and faith in one who so often feels weak and frail and entirely unsuitable for whatever task it might be that has come to hand; yet, I know you, Tyché, and I know that you are strong and steadfast and more than capable of rising to and overcoming all manner of challenges that might be placed in your path. It is a hard life, but it is rewarding in ways that many are simply not capable of imagining, much less understanding. You, though, you are such a one, young one, and I promise you that the Lady would not have asked this of you if you were not able to do it. You must simply be willing to _try_ , to work harder than you ever have before in your life for anything and to truly _want_ to succeed, and the Lady will surely give you all the aid and protection that She is able and will help guide you to ever to success,” pressing her hands firmly between her own and smiling at her in what is clearly meant to be a reassuring manner – but the sick feeling of fear remains firmly lodged in the pit of her stomach and, if anything, the all but overwhelming impression of some swiftly approaching calamity only increases in strength.

 **09.) Potential:** There’s another young ward of the Lady’s Temple who’s about Tyché’s age, Acharé Alstone – a prodigy of martial arts, gymnastics, and dance (a combination that has always struck Tyché as being, well . . . kind of odd, honestly, even though she can understand, logically speaking, how there could be a lot of overlap between those three specific areas of discipline) who has been receiving increasingly highly specialized training since the age of about four, which has kept her much apart from the other wards of the Temple who are close to her in age, including Tyché. She knows this girl mainly by sight (slim and supple, with dark eyes and hair of a middling shade of brown with enough natural body to want to wave and curl, if left on its own, and a heart-shaped face dominated by a nose that the rest of her body has yet to truly grow into), her impression of her having always been one of tightly coiled strength and thinly leashed potential for sudden explosive movement, the impression of barely restrained violence so vivid that (even though there are relatively few wards in this specific Temple who are around her own age and this girl is only a few months younger than she is) Tyché has, frankly, not been much bothered by the fact that the girl’s highly specialized training has mostly kept her away from the other wards – and, only a few hours after the _dævítru eisharti searbhânuasal_ has come to speak with her, she’s shocked to find herself not only being formally introduced to Acharé but being told, quite seriously, that, when she leaves the Temple to attach herself to Padmé Naberrie court, Acharé will accompany her, to help provide some added protection, the slightly younger girl in essence being assigned to act as her bodyguard so that she will (hopefully) be free to act in whatever way the Lady requires, to help safeguard Padmé Naberrie and make sure that she does whatever it is that she needs to, as Queen of Naboo, to save the planet from ravening clutches of the monster so awful that she has never caught more than the barest flickering glimpses of his heavily robed and cowled form in her visions.

 **10.) Revival:** Things begin happen very quickly, after Acharé begins shadowing her – she is barely permitted a day to try to adjust to the new reality of being expected to figure out some way of attaching herself to the as yet still largely hypothetical court of a complete stranger, with another girl who is, as yet, little more than a stranger, herself, shadowing her every step of the way, when a beautiful young girl by the name of Sabé Dahn (her signature in the _criosanna teinedíait_ at once somehow so irresistibly strong and yet so perfectly harmoniously balanced and so in tune with the world and the beings around her that Tyché has the strangest feeling of being simultaneously overwhelmed and overpowered and even overcome, a little, and yet also of having met such a perfectly attuned kindred spirit as to have, in a sense, _found_ herself and found her home, become _more_ herself by finding someone so like to and yet so very much more than herself, the feeling of _moreness_ and of _belonging_ so giddy and consuming and uplifting that it feels as if she’s somehow been both lifted up out of herself and yet pushed more thoroughly into being as herself, to the point where, afterwards, she finds it hard to believe that anything at all approaching sense came out of her mouth at any point whatsoever during that first meeting with Sabé) comes to the Temple seeking to speak to someone about the old ways and the vows associated with the concept of an elected monarch’s chosen companions/handmaidens, and she finds herself thoroughly embroiled in a plan to not only convince a girl who has not yet even been elected Princess of Theed to agree to a revival of the old ways of sworn Lord or Lady and avowed chosen companions or handmaidens when she has become monarch of all of Naboo, but to somehow do so in such a way as to insert both herself and her new shadow into the ranks of those new handmaidens without also in the process revealing the sacred mandate of protection that has apparently been passed down from the Lady to her and to Acharé both (even though, privately, she still has doubts about whether the Lady truly means for Acharé to be caught up in this and she isn’t just being made into a convenient pawn by the _searbhânuasal_ of the Temple).

 **11.) First:** The first time Acharé kisses her, the announcement has just been made that Padmé Naberrie, Princess of Theed, has formally consented to her nomination for the upcoming election for the monarch of Naboo, and it is bolt from the blue (unexpected and galvanizing and shocking and energizing and life-changing and _perfect_ ) and sudden sensation of overwhelming _belonging_ and _home_ and much more of a _muchness_ and everything, _everything_ , all of life poured down and distilled into this one all too brief and yet seemingly simultaneously endless moment of absolute perfection, of wholeness, of oneness with the Lady and Her plan and the _criosanna teinedíait_ and the _now_ and the _ever_ and all of creation, and, for the first time since she first heard the name of Padmé Naberrie, all sense of doubt and oncoming, looming doom and danger of abject failure and the total destruction and devastation of all she holds dear finally, _finally_ leaves her as, for one achingly (almost unbearably) wondrous moment, she is filled with peace and the utter, unquestioning certainty that she is _absolutely_ where she most needs to be, doing what she must, and that all will, in the end, come out aright, after all, if only she has faith and continues to trust in the Lady and to permit Her to use her in the fulfillment of Her will and Her plan for creation. 

**12.) Resist:** When Viceroy Gunray and his conscienceless lackeys finally make their move, Queen Amidala tells them to run, to go to ground, to hide and to hold out and to resist, to never give in and never permit the Trade Federation and its droid armies to win, to band together with others and start a resistance movement and wait for her return, with help from the Senate, so they can oust these criminal invaders; yet, there are traitors in their midst who have turned on them and their Lady, in the hopes that proving willing to cooperate (to _collaborate_ ) will not only buy them personal safety but also bring them rank and privilege and riches that they clearly do not deserve, and, though some of her newly found sisters among the young Queen’s handmaiden coterie manage to get away (the rest of them falling back, to cover their retreat, as they snatch up the young Princess of Theed, Ellie, and as many of her young handmaidens as they possibly can, to try to get them safely out of the Palace), the rest of them are so well and truly caught that they cannot run, much less go to ground and start planning a successful resistance movement, and there is moment where everything balances on a knife’s edge and she knows (she _knows_ , in a way that cannot be questioned), _absolutely_ , that even the barest hint of wrong movement will see the whole lot of them plunged off the edge, down into the abyss, and perhaps even doom their sworn Lady’s scheme to retake the planet (with help from the Senate) to inevitable ruin before that plan can even truly begin to finish forming . . . so, taking a deep breath to help center herself and calm her desperately attempting to panic body, she deliberately pulls down all of her shields, ripping herself wide open to the wildly agitated tides of the _criosanna teinedíait_ and the Great Lady’s will, and, opening her mouth, flings herself pell-mell out into the embrace of Asherah’s living mantle, hollowing herself out to make of herself a willing vessel for the Great Lady’s power and will, letting Her work through her and trusting (blindly hoping) that it will be enough to save as many of them as will be necessary, to ensure that their Queen will succeed in freeing their world.

 **13.) Face:** It is not _just_ a hard path, no matter what the _dævítru eisharti searbhânuasal_ said: it is nigh on _impossible_ , to have to sit and smile and pretend and lie, _lie, **lie,**_ lie with every fiber of her being, to believably feign understanding and sympathy and even likeness of being (kinship of spirit, of heart) with these traitors, these _monsters_ , to put on a public face of indifference to the suffering of the people and the gut-churning, nightmare-inducing, increasingly awful atrocities being committed behind closed doors by these _streppoch_ , these evil and surely soon to be legally declared _saidhín khiel-streppain_ (if the Lady wills it. And Lady _bless_ , but _please_ , let the Lady will it and will it _soon_!), and then turn around, slip away in the shadows, and be as much oneself again as is safely possible, under the circumstances, doing everything humanly possibly (and even some things that should not be, with help from the Lady, filled with Her will and infused with the luck and the power of that will) to try to help, to ease some of that suffering, to work behind the scenes to try to undo some of the worst excesses and to curtail at least some of the worst appetites and inclinations of the traitors, the _collaborators_ , to help those who are free to work havoc against the invaders and their toadies, those who are doing their best to resist, to hold out, like their Queen has ordered, and wait for her return, with help, so that they can free Naboo.

 **14.) Fate:** There is a moment, when the Palace is finally ( _finally_!) being retaken and she is quite certain that her work is done and this will be the end for her, that she will be given no chance to try to explain herself and that none will try to speak for her, either, and that it will not matter, in the long run (though her heart breaks within her, at the thought that this means that it will also be the end for her beloved Acharé, who will, of course, try to save her and so inevitably be forced to share her fate), because Queen Amidala is successfully taking back the Palace, and Theed, and the whole of the world, and all will be well again, very soon, because Naboo will no longer be at the mercy of the mysterious cloaked figure haunting her visions . . . and then a wave of absolute _power_ in seemingly human form steps into the room and (while she is helplessly gasping and gaping in abject shock at the boy-man in Jedi robes who is so very much _more_ a living avatar of the Great Lady and the _criosanna teinedíait_ than anyone or anything she has ever even _tried_ to imagine, before, much less heard tell of) calmly places himself in between her and Acharé and the ranks of (furious) (frightened) resistance fighters who are all so busily pointing blasters at them, and, in a voice of quiet command, utterly shreds the hand of fate that, only moments before, she had been so certain had been dealt to her and her beloved, simply by saying, “Hold.” 

**15.) Sense:** There are simply no words for Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is clearly impossible and yet who _is_ , who warps and refashions the woven threads of reality simply by sheer force of will (by sheer dint of _existence_ ) alone, who so naturally, so easily, so _impossibly_ holds so much of the energies of the _criosanna teinedíait_ within himself that, even with all of her strongest shields firmly in place, she is left feeling punch-drunk and sun-blinded and dizzy and scorched and _stupid_ from the sheer dazzle of the power constantly smoking and burning off of the edges of him, seeping out through his own shields and back into the living ebb and flow of the Lady’s mantle of power; perhaps, thus, she shouldn’t be so terribly surprised, when he, with but a few words, not only cuts forever the bonds of fate and duty that have held her and her beloved bound to the web of destiny tied to Padmé _Amidala_ Naberrie and the freedom of Naboo, but fashions for them new bonds of fate (as though it were nothing at all!), as well (“You were a mole, weren’t you? I’ve heard of you and the good you’ve done here, the people you’ve saved. If you and your partner are no longer welcome here – if Naboo is no longer safe for you, because the people would rather take the easy way out and simply lump the two of you in with the collaborators and the traitors, without taking into account all of the good you managed to do, working behind the scenes, or the danger you risked, by doing so – then I can gladly offer you both sanctuary on Alderaan. The Crown Prince of Alderaan, Bail Organa, is a friend, and he and his family would happily welcome two such responsible and dedicated, talented young defenders of freedom and justice. Let me arrange passage for you and your partner to Alderaan. You will likely have to leave your names behind, but you will survive and you will be together and you will be free to thrive in a place where you are welcome and your beliefs and talents are not only accepted, but wanted and needed and shared by others.”), her old life ending and a new one beginning with nothing more than a heartfelt offer and a nod offered up in helplessly tongue-tied acquiescence.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Clafication Notes:** **1.)** I have no idea how I managed to do this, y'all (though I rather suspect that, after having written character study pieces for first Lietté Gaillen and Roché Jodelle and then Essé Seltrin and Rosé Ganesa and then finally poor Tillé Levesin and Maitané Aldona that my brain just balked and refused to write anything else about war crimes or collaborators), but apparently Anakin Skywalker isn't the only one who can't count, when it comes to handmaidens, because somehow or another, back in 2007, when I was working on my first batch of character study sketches for my handmaidens, I managed to skip two girls entirely from the first class. I never even noticed it until I went to post the character study sketches here and I couldn't figure out why, given ten girls each in three different classes for a total of thirty girls, minus the canon handmaidens (Sabé, Rabé, Eirtaé, Yané, Saché, and Dormé), I kept coming up with twenty-two instead of twenty-four character study sketches that needed posting. So . . . I went and wrote character study pieces for the two missing girls, who, as it turns out, weren't quite collaborators at all . . . and who are still alive on Alderaan somewhere (a fact that I shall have to address at some point in a future story, I'm sure) . . . **2.)** Readers should probably keep in mind that one of the reasons why my AU **Star Wars** series _**You Became to Me**_ is so entirely not even nearly complete has to do with the fact that I really started writing at the wrong end of the prequel trilogy for an AU (in my defense, though, when I started what became my _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ trio, which is over a million words long, I thought I was doing a sort of one-shot fix-it based on an idea I got for "fixing" RotS by changing something that happens very near the end of James Luceno's EU novel _Labyrinth of Evil_ , which is set immediately prior to RotS). One of these days, I fully intend to rectify that problem by going back and starting from the beginning, with an AU rewrite of TPM, which is why I took the time to do a character study sketch for a supporting character like Tyché. She'll be showing up again, in a more prominent role, whenever I get around to that AU rewrite of TPM. Folks might want to keep that in mind when reading this, since technically this is spoilerish for an AU novel that I haven't gotten around to writing yet!


End file.
